


Blank

by coconutcluster



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: :(, Angst, Roman Angst, no ships its literally just roman being sad and wanting someone to ask him if he's okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-24 22:48:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20366383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coconutcluster/pseuds/coconutcluster
Summary: Something’s wrong with Roman.Something has been wrong with him for a while now, but it seems worse lately, and now he’s staring at a blank wall, because a part of him relishes in its quiet existence, because a wall is allowed to be blank and no one asks why, asks where its contributions are, its value, or why it hasn’t painted its surface with words and ideas and plans yet. No one expects too much from a blank wall, and no one is disappointed when it doesn’t live up to what they wanted.





	Blank

Roman is staring at a blank wall. 

It’s not blank, actually - there’s a TV in front of it, and it’s draped in shadows with the sunset outside the window - but his eyes seem to have drifted to the one spot that’s bare, a mind-numbing beige color that makes his vision go blurry with its uniformity. He blinks every few minutes, when he remembers, but it doesn’t change anything. He’s starting to think it’s not the wall blurring his vision. 

He hasn’t touched his notebook. It’s in his lap as he sits crosslegged on the couch in the Commons of the Mindscape, a position he takes up quite often, especially when Logan and Patton are busy in the kitchen and the smells of home cooking drift to him as he works, moreso when Virgil joins them and lounges on whichever non-chair he chooses; there’s an inspiration from a sense of home, of comfort and nostalgia. Roman relishes in the contentedness of it all - the stories he writes in their midst are always his favorites, the ones he holds dear. 

But despite the sound of Patton giggling as Logan groans at some pun, the smell of pancakes - breakfast for dinner, Roman’s favorite, though he can’t stomach the idea right now - and the sight of Virgil, perched on the stair railing as he scrolls on his phone, a picture perfect scene of a serene evening, Roman can’t seem to find that inspiration. The excitement of an idea has yet to push his pen across the page; there’s something sharp, something desperate in him instead, something aching for the familiar sense of belonging and peace. He can only keep staring at an empty wall, waiting for something that clearly isn’t coming tonight. 

Something’s wrong with him. Something has been wrong with him for a while now, but it seems worse lately. He thought it was just stress at first - the partnership with Crofter’s, that had been a lot of pressure on him, especially since he hadn’t even been acknowledged until he forced himself into the scene, although he knows that Logan deserved the attention far more than he did. (That was when the heaviness in his stomach started, the weight that left him feeling ironically empty; he’d felt it before, but in the moment, he could only call it jealousy, even though he could tell it was more than that.) And it was shortly thereafter that Thomas became more critical of his work - he wanted it to be the best, which Roman understood, even if it meant facing the fact that he was failing his most important job. Then, of course, the callback, then the retaliation with his brother, a whole nightmarish fiasco that he doesn’t want to think about, though it shatters his focus daily. He made the right decision in the court - _right, right, right_, he tells himself, he doesn’t even know what right is - and it only resulted in his fear manifesting before him (behind him?), the spitting image of everything he has the potential to be, just a few shades darker than his current facade. 

Roman’s trying so hard to get things right, do good by Thomas, but with every decision, every obstacle and revelation alike, his eyes feel heavier, like he’ll close them one day and they’ll never open again. He wouldn’t mind that right now; he’d give anything to get a full night’s sleep again. 

His pen hasn’t moved yet. He’s still staring at a blank wall, because a part of him relishes in its quiet existence, because a wall is allowed to be blank and no one asks why, asks where its contributions are, its value, or why it hasn’t painted its surface with words and ideas and plans yet. No one expects too much from a blank wall, and no one is disappointed when it doesn’t live up to what they wanted. _No one ever asks if a blank wall is okay, _he reminds himself, but all that results from that is a pained chuckle out of nowhere and the conclusion that the blank wall has it better.

“Did you say something, kiddo?” Patton calls from the kitchen, peeking around from where he’s standing at the oven. Roman glances over and straightens up. 

“I don’t believe so,” he says as brightly as he can manage, voice flatter than usual and smile dim; he’s curious - more than curious - if Patton will notice and frown, get that little crease between his eyebrows, pause his baking to ask him what’s wrong. Roman doesn’t know what he’d say, but he doesn’t care. He suddenly and overwhelmingly needs Patton to notice. 

The moral Side gives a smile that scrunches his nose, looking around the room with feigned suspicion as he says, “I must be hearing things! All these fumes!”

“They’re pancakes, Patton,” Logan cuts in with genuine concern. “I assure you there’s nothing toxic in them.”

Roman watches them from his seat on the couch, fingers curling tighter around his stagnant pen. There’s a split second where the hollow at his core is set ablaze that Patton didn’t recognize his lackluster; it’s gone in a second, quenched instantly, as he chastises himself. He has no reason to be bitter about it if he doesn’t actually tell them he’s feeling bad. But he knows, with a frantic flutter in his chest, that he can’t do that. 

He’s tried - he just worried Thomas the first time, and every time after that, it only seemed to deepen the rift inside him. He can’t tell them he’s broken. If they find out themselves, it’s meant to happen, he reasons, but he can’t tell them. The thought of it makes his heart race, vision blurring all over again, and it’s like someone’s holding him back, begging him not to ruin everything and show them just how weak he is, and it’s not until his gaze finds the blank wall once more that he realizes the voice begging is his own. 

“Princey?”

He’s slower this time, blinking at the wall before he turns to the voice. Virgil furrows his eyebrows as their eyes meet, and he squints, just a little, his gaze flickering from Roman’s face to the blank notebook in his lap.

“What exactly are you working on?” he asks with a bemused breath of a laugh. 

_A blank wall, blank notebook, blank pages and slates and minds. _“Nothing yet,” Roman returns, pasting a halfhearted parody of his crooked grin across his face. 

_Notice it, _that frantic voice screams noiselessly, _See me, **please**. Ask me, just once, just ask me if I’m alright. _He doesn’t have an answer, but he wants a reason to find one - maybe, if they ask, and he can’t come up with anything, maybe they’ll know then, and they’ll see, and everything will be okay. He just wants everything to be okay. He wants to be okay. 

And there’s a pause: Virgil’s gaze turns suspicious, glimmering, and the hollow in Roman’s chest is filled with the tiniest flutter of hope- 

Virgil gives another short laugh, eyes flickering to Roman’s notebook again, and shakes his head, turning back to his phone. 

Roman expects a crushing weight in his stomach as he stares at the anxious Side. He expects the wall of tears blurring his vision to finally fall, and he considers, briefly, what would happen if he just let the dam break, let his words rush out before the others - but when he turns back to his notebook, traces the empty lines for the millionth time, he just feels numb. 

He lifts his eyes and lets them roam. They trail from his notebook to the wall yet again, blank to blank to blank again, and he swallows, feels his thoughts slip into the emptiness of it all. It won’t last; eventually, something will tear him from the hollow peace, dinner or his brother or a nagging query. 

But for now, he stares at a blank wall. 


End file.
